August 19, 2025 • 17 mins
Join Theodore Roosevelt as he recounts his thrilling experiences with The Rough Riders, the legendary 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry formed in 1898 for the Spanish-American War. As Lt. Colonel and second-in-command, Roosevelt vividly portrays the brave men and their spirited horses, the challenges they faced, and the fierce battles they fought in Cuba. He paints a picture of soldiers forged from the rugged wilderness, accustomed to the wild and the unpredictable. With a passion for adventure and an eagerness for action, these “grim hunters of the mountains” were ready to face any foe. Roosevelt’s account is a stirring tribute to their courage and camaraderie, making it a compelling listen for history enthusiasts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section fourteen of the rough Writers by Theodore Roosevelt. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by William
Peck the pendix B Colonel Roosevelt's report to the Secretary
of War of September tenth. Before it was sent, this
letter was read to and approved by every officer of
the regiment who had served through the Santiago Campaign. Copy
(00:25):
Camp Wickoff, September tenth, eighteen ninety eight, to the Secretary
of War, Sir, in answer to the circular issued by
command of Major General Shafter under date of September eighth,
eighteen ninety eight, containing a request for information by the
Adjutant General of September seventh, I have the honor to
report as follows. I am a little in doubt whether
(00:48):
the fact that on certain occasions my regiment suffered for food,
et cetera, should be put down to an actual shortage
of supplies or to general defects in the system of administration. Thus,
when the regiment arrived in Tampa after a four days
journey by cars from its camp at San Antonio, it
received no food whatsoever for twenty four hours. And as
(01:09):
the travel rations have been completely exhausted. Food for several
of the troops was purchased by their officers, who, of
course have not been reimbursed by the government. In the
same way, we were short one or two meals at
the time of embarking at Port Tampa on the transport,
but this I think was due not to a failure
in the quantity of supplies, but to the lack of
(01:29):
system in embarkation. As with the other regiments, no information
was given in advance what transports we should take or
how we should proceed to get aboard, nor did anyone
exercise any supervision over the embarkation. Each regimental commander, so
far as I know, was left to find out as
best he could after he was down at the dock
(01:51):
what transport had not been taken, and then to get
his regiment aboard it if he was able before some
other regiment got it. Our regiment was told to go
to a certain switch and take a train for Port
Tampa at twelve o'clock midnight. The train never came. After
three hours of waiting, we were sent to another switch,
and finally, at six o'clock in the morning got possession
(02:13):
of some coal cars and came down in them. When
we reached the quay where the embarkation was proceeding, everything
was in utter confusion. The quay was piled with stores
and swarming with thousands of men of different regiments, besides onlookers,
et cetera. The commanding general, when we at last found them,
told Colonel Wood and myself that he did not know
(02:34):
what ship we were to embark on, and that we
must find Colonel Humphrey, the quartermaster General. Colonel Humphrey was
not in his office and nobody knew where he was.
The commanders of the different regiments were busy trying to
find them, while their troops waited in the trains so
as to discover the ships to which they were allotted,
some of these ships being at the dock and some
in midstream. After a couple of hours search, Colonel Wood
(02:58):
found Colonel Humphrey and was allotted the ship. Immediately afterward,
I found that it had already been allotted to two
other regiments. It was then coming to the dock. Colonel
Wood boarded it in mid stream to keep possession while
I double quicked the men down from the cars and
got there just ahead of the other two regiments. One
of these regiments, I was afterward informed spent the next
(03:19):
thirty six hours in cars. In consequence, we suffered nothing
beyond the loss of a couple of meals, which it
seems to me can hardly be put down to any
failure in the quantity of supplies furnished to the troops.
We were two weeks on the troop ship Yucatan, and
as we were given twelve days travel rations, we of
course fell short toward the end of the trip, but
eked things out with some of our field rations and
(03:41):
troop stuff. The quality of the travel rations given us
was good, except in the important item of meat. The
canned roast beef is worse than a failure as part
of the rations, for in effect it amounts to reducing
the rations by just so much as a great majority
of the men find it uneedable. It was coarse, stringy, tasteless,
and very disagreeable in appearance, and so unpalatable that the
(04:04):
effort to eat it made some of the men sick.
Most of the men preferred to be hungry rather than
to eat it. If cooked in a stew with plenty
of onions and potatoes, i e. If only one ingredient
in a dish with other more savory ingredients. It could
be eaten, especially if well salted and peppered. But as
usual what I regard is a great mistake. No salt
(04:24):
was issued with the travel rations, and of course no
potatoes and onions. There was no cooking facilities on the transport.
When the men obtained any it was by bribing the cook.
Toward the last when they began to draw on the
field rations, they had to eat the bacon raw. On
the return trip, the same difficulty in rations obtained i e.
(04:45):
The rations were short because the men could not eat
the canned roast beef and had no salt. We purchase
of the ship's supplied some flour and pork, and a
little rice for the men, so as to relieve the
shortage as much as possible, and individual sick men were
held help from private sources by officers who themselves ate
what they had purchased in Santiago. As nine tenths of
(05:06):
the men were more or less sick, the unattractiveness of
the travel rations was doubly unfortunate. It would have been
an excellent thing for their health if we could have
had onions and potatoes and means for cooking them. Moreover,
the water was very bad, and sometimes a cask was
struck that was positively undrinkable. The lack of ice for
(05:27):
the weak and sickly men was very much felt. Fortunately
there was no epidemic, for there was not a place
on the ship where patients could have been isolated. During
the month following the landing of the army in Cuba,
the food supplies were generally shortened. Quantity and in quality
were never such as were best suited to men undergoing
severe hardships and great exposure in an unhealthy tropical climate.
(05:51):
The rations were, I understand, the same as those used
in the Klondike. In this connection I called special attention
to the report of Captain Brown made by my orders
when I was brigade commander, and here was appended. I
also called attention to the report of my own quartermaster.
Usually we received full rations of bacon and hardtack. The
(06:11):
herd attack, however, was often moldly, so that parts of
cases and even whole cases, could not be used. The
bacon was usually good, but bacon and hardtack make poor
food for men toiling and fighting in trenches under the
midsummer sun of the tropics. The ration of coffee was
often short, and that of sugar generally, so we rarely
got any vegetables. Under these circumstances, the men lost strength steadily,
(06:36):
and as the fevers speedily attacked them, they suffered from
being reduced to a bacon and hardtacked diet. So much
did the shortage of proper food tell upon their health
that again and again officers were compelled to draw upon
their private purses or upon the Red Cross Society to
make good the deficiency of the government's supply. Again and
again we sent down improvised pack trains composed of officers, horses,
(06:59):
of captured Spanish cavalry ponies, or of mules which have
been shot or abandoned but were cured by our men.
These expeditions, sometimes under the chaplains, sometimes under the quartermaster,
sometimes under myself, and occasionally under a trooper, would go
to the sea coast, or to the Red Cross headquarters,
or after the surrender, into the city of Santiago to
(07:21):
get food, both for the well and the sick. The
Red Cross Society rendered invaluable aid. For example, on one
of these expeditions, I personally bought up six hundred pounds
of beans On another occasion, I personally bought up five
hundred pounds of rice, eight hundred pounds of corn meal,
two hundred pounds of sugar, one hundred pounds of tea,
(07:42):
one hundred pounds of oat meal, five barrels of potatoes,
and two of onions, with cases of canned soup and
condensed milk for the sick in hospitals. Every scrap of
the food thus brought up was eaten with avidity by
the soldiers and put new heart and strength into them.
It was only our constant care of the men, and
in this way that enabled us to keep them in
(08:02):
any trim at all. As for the sick in the hospital,
unless we were able from outside sources to get them
such simple delicacies as rice and condensed milk, they usually
had the alternative of eating salt, pork and hardtack, or
going without. After each fight, we got a good deal
of food from the Spanish camps in the way of beans, peas,
and rice, together with green coffee, all of which the
(08:25):
men used and relished greatly. In some respects the Spanish
rations were preferable to ours, notably in the use of rice.
After we had been ashore a month the supplies began
to come in in abundance, and we then fared very well.
Up to that time. The men were underfed during the
very weeks when the heaviest drain was being made upon
their vitality, and the deficiency was only partially supplied through
(08:49):
the aid of the Red Cross and out of the
officer's pockets and the pockets of various New York friends
who sent us money. Before, during, and immediately after the
fights of June twenty fourth and in July first, we
were very short of even the bacon and hard tack.
About July fourteenth, when the heavy rains interrupted communication, we
were threatened with famine, as we were informed that there
(09:11):
was not a day's supply of provisions in advance nearer
than the sea coast. In another twenty four hours. Reign
would have resulted in a complete breakdown of communications, so
that for several days we should have been reduced to
a diet of mule meat and mangoes. At this time,
in anticipation of such a contingency, by foraging and hoarding,
we got a little ahead so that when our supplies
(09:33):
were cut down for a day or two, we did
not suffer much and we were even able to furnish
a little aid to the less fortunate First Illinois Regiment,
which was camped next to us. Members of the Illinois
Regiment were offering our men one dollar apiece for hard tacks.
I wish to bear testimony to the energy and capacity
of Colonel Weston, the Commissary General, with the expedition. If
(09:56):
it had not been for his active aid, we should
have fared worse than we did. All that he could
do for us he most cheerfully did. As regards the clothing,
I have to say as to the first issue, the
blue shirts were excellent of their kind, but altogether too
hot for Cuba. They are just what I used to
wear in Montana. The leggings were good, the shoes were
(10:17):
very good, the undershirts not very good, and the drawers bad,
being of heavy, thick Canton flannel, difficult to wash and
entirely unfit for a tropical climate. The trousers were poor,
wearing badly. We did not get any other clothing until
we were just about to leave Cuba, by which time
most of the men were in tatters, some being actually barefooted,
(10:38):
while others were in rags or dressed partly in clothes
captured from the Spaniards, who were much more suitably clothed
for the climate and place than we were. The ponchos
were poor, being inferior to the Spanish raincoats which we captured.
As to the medical matters, I invite your attention not
only to the report of Doctor Church accompanying this letter,
but to the letters of Captain Llewellyn, Captain and Lieutenant McElhenny.
(11:02):
I could readily produce a hundred letters on the lines
of the last three. In actual medical supplies, we had
plenty of quinine and cathartics, we were apt to be
short on other medicines, and we had nothing whatever in
the way of proper nourishing food for our sick and
wounded men during most of the time, except what we
were able to get from the Red Cross or purchase
(11:23):
with our own money. We had no hospital tent at
all until I was able to get a couple of tarpaulins.
During much of the time my own fly was used
for the purpose. We had no cots until by individual
effort we obtained a few only three or four days
before we left Cuba. During most of the time, the
sick men lay on the muddy ground in blankets if
(11:43):
they had any. If not, they lay without him until
some of the well men cut their own blankets in half.
Our regimental surgeon very soon left us, and doctor Church,
who was repeatedly taken down with the fever, was left alone,
save as he was helped by men detailed from among
the troopers. Both he and the men thus detailed, together
with the regular hospital attendants, did work of incalculable service.
(12:07):
We had no ambulance with the regiment on the battlefield.
Our wounded were generally sent to the rear in mule
wagons or on litters, which were improvised. At other times
we would hire the little springless Cuban carts, but of
course the wounded suffered greatly in such conveyances, and moreover
often we could not get a wheeled vehicle of any
(12:27):
kind to transport even the most serious cases. On the
day of the big fight, July first, as far as
we could find out, there were but two ambulances with
the army, and condition the work, neither of which did
we ever see. Later there were, as we were informed,
thirteen all told, and occasionally after the surrender, by vigorous
representations and requests, we would get one assigned to take
(12:50):
some peculiarly bad cases to the hospital. Ordinarily, however, we
had to do with one of the makeshifts enumerated above.
On several occasions of the big hospitals in the rear,
their condition was frightful beyond description, from lack of supplies,
lack of medicine, lack of doctors, nurses and attendants, and
(13:10):
especially from lack of transportation. The wounded and sick who
were sent back suffered so much that whenever possible, they
returned to the front. Finally, my brigade Commander, General Wood ordered,
with my hearty acquiescence, that only in the direst need
should any men be sent to the rear. No matter
what our hospital accommodations at the front might be. The
(13:31):
men themselves preferred to suffer almost anything lying alone in
their little shelter tents, rather than go back to the
hospitals in the rear. I invite attention to the accompany
letter of Captain Llewellyn in relation to the dreadful condition
of the wounded on some of the transports taking them north.
The greatest trouble we had was with the lack of transportation.
(13:53):
Under the order issued by direction of General Miles through
the Adjuntant General on or about May eighth, a regiment
serving as infantry in the field was entitled to twenty
five wagons. We often had one, often none, sometimes two,
and never as many as three. We had a regimental
pack train, but it was left behind at Tampa. During
(14:14):
most of the time. Our means of transportation were chiefly
the improvised pack trains spoken of above. But as the
mules got well, they were taken away from us, and
so were the captured Spanish cavalry horses. Whenever we shifted camp,
we had to leave most of our things behind, so
that the night before each fight was marked by our
sleeping without tentage and with very little food. So far
(14:36):
as officers were concerned, as everything had to be sacrificed
to getting up what ammunition and medical supplies we had.
Colonel Wood seized some mules and in this manner got
up the medical supplies before the fight of June twenty fourth,
when for three days the officers had nothing but what
they wore. There was a repetition of this, only in
worse form, before and after the fight of July. One
(14:59):
of course, much each of this was simply a natural
incident of war, but a great deal could readily have
been avoided if we had had enough transportation. And I
was sorry not to let my men be as comfortable
as possible and rest as much as possible just before
going into a fight, when as on July first and
July second, they might have to be forty eight hours
with the minimum quantity of food and sleep. The fever
(15:22):
began to make heavy ravages among our men just before
the surrender, and from that time on it became a
most serious matter. The shift camp, with sick and ailing
soldiers hardly able to walk, not to speak of carrying
heavy burdens when we had no transportation. Not more than
half of the men could carry their roles, and yet
these with the officer's baggage of provisions, the entire hospital
(15:44):
and its appurtenansus, et cetera, had to be transported somehow.
It was usually about three days after we reached the
new camp before the necessaries which had been left behind
could be brought up, and during these three days we
had to get along as best we could. The entire
lack of train transportation at first resulted in leaving most
of the troop mess kits on the beach, and we
(16:05):
were never able to get them. The men cooked in
the few utensils they could themselves carry. This rendered it
impossible to boil the drinking water. Closely allied to the
lack of transportation was the lack of means to land
supplies from the transports. In my opinion, the deficiency and
transportation was the worst evil with which we had to contend, serious,
(16:26):
though some of the others were I have never served before,
so have no means of comparing this with previous campaigns.
I was often told by officers who had seen service
against the Indians that relatively to the size of the
army and the character of the country, we had only
a small fraction of the transportation always used in the
Indian campaigns. As far as my regiment was concerned, we
(16:49):
certainly did not have one third of the amount absolutely
necessary if it was to be kept in fair condition,
and we had to partially make good the deficiency by
the most energetic resort to all kinds of makeup and expedients.
Yours respectfully, sign, Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel, first United States Cavalry,
forwarded through military channels five enclosures. First endorsement, Headquarters, Fifth
(17:14):
Army Corps, Camp Wickoff, September eighteenth, eighteen ninety eight, Respectfully
Forwarded to the Adjunct General of the Army, sign William R.
Shafter Major General Commanding, and of Appendix B
Section fourteen of the rough Writers by Theodore Roosevelt. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by William
Peck the pendix B Colonel Roosevelt's report to the Secretary
of War of September tenth. Before it was sent, this
letter was read to and approved by every officer of
the regiment who had served through the Santiago Campaign. Copy
(00:25):
Camp Wickoff, September tenth, eighteen ninety eight, to the Secretary
of War, Sir, in answer to the circular issued by
command of Major General Shafter under date of September eighth,
eighteen ninety eight, containing a request for information by the
Adjutant General of September seventh, I have the honor to
report as follows. I am a little in doubt whether
(00:48):
the fact that on certain occasions my regiment suffered for food,
et cetera, should be put down to an actual shortage
of supplies or to general defects in the system of administration. Thus,
when the regiment arrived in Tampa after a four days
journey by cars from its camp at San Antonio, it
received no food whatsoever for twenty four hours. And as
(01:09):
the travel rations have been completely exhausted. Food for several
of the troops was purchased by their officers, who, of
course have not been reimbursed by the government. In the
same way, we were short one or two meals at
the time of embarking at Port Tampa on the transport,
but this I think was due not to a failure
in the quantity of supplies, but to the lack of
(01:29):
system in embarkation. As with the other regiments, no information
was given in advance what transports we should take or
how we should proceed to get aboard, nor did anyone
exercise any supervision over the embarkation. Each regimental commander, so
far as I know, was left to find out as
best he could after he was down at the dock
(01:51):
what transport had not been taken, and then to get
his regiment aboard it if he was able before some
other regiment got it. Our regiment was told to go
to a certain switch and take a train for Port
Tampa at twelve o'clock midnight. The train never came. After
three hours of waiting, we were sent to another switch,
and finally, at six o'clock in the morning got possession
(02:13):
of some coal cars and came down in them. When
we reached the quay where the embarkation was proceeding, everything
was in utter confusion. The quay was piled with stores
and swarming with thousands of men of different regiments, besides onlookers,
et cetera. The commanding general, when we at last found them,
told Colonel Wood and myself that he did not know
(02:34):
what ship we were to embark on, and that we
must find Colonel Humphrey, the quartermaster General. Colonel Humphrey was
not in his office and nobody knew where he was.
The commanders of the different regiments were busy trying to
find them, while their troops waited in the trains so
as to discover the ships to which they were allotted,
some of these ships being at the dock and some
in midstream. After a couple of hours search, Colonel Wood
(02:58):
found Colonel Humphrey and was allotted the ship. Immediately afterward,
I found that it had already been allotted to two
other regiments. It was then coming to the dock. Colonel
Wood boarded it in mid stream to keep possession while
I double quicked the men down from the cars and
got there just ahead of the other two regiments. One
of these regiments, I was afterward informed spent the next
(03:19):
thirty six hours in cars. In consequence, we suffered nothing
beyond the loss of a couple of meals, which it
seems to me can hardly be put down to any
failure in the quantity of supplies furnished to the troops.
We were two weeks on the troop ship Yucatan, and
as we were given twelve days travel rations, we of
course fell short toward the end of the trip, but
eked things out with some of our field rations and
(03:41):
troop stuff. The quality of the travel rations given us
was good, except in the important item of meat. The
canned roast beef is worse than a failure as part
of the rations, for in effect it amounts to reducing
the rations by just so much as a great majority
of the men find it uneedable. It was coarse, stringy, tasteless,
and very disagreeable in appearance, and so unpalatable that the
(04:04):
effort to eat it made some of the men sick.
Most of the men preferred to be hungry rather than
to eat it. If cooked in a stew with plenty
of onions and potatoes, i e. If only one ingredient
in a dish with other more savory ingredients. It could
be eaten, especially if well salted and peppered. But as
usual what I regard is a great mistake. No salt
(04:24):
was issued with the travel rations, and of course no
potatoes and onions. There was no cooking facilities on the transport.
When the men obtained any it was by bribing the cook.
Toward the last when they began to draw on the
field rations, they had to eat the bacon raw. On
the return trip, the same difficulty in rations obtained i e.
(04:45):
The rations were short because the men could not eat
the canned roast beef and had no salt. We purchase
of the ship's supplied some flour and pork, and a
little rice for the men, so as to relieve the
shortage as much as possible, and individual sick men were
held help from private sources by officers who themselves ate
what they had purchased in Santiago. As nine tenths of
(05:06):
the men were more or less sick, the unattractiveness of
the travel rations was doubly unfortunate. It would have been
an excellent thing for their health if we could have
had onions and potatoes and means for cooking them. Moreover,
the water was very bad, and sometimes a cask was
struck that was positively undrinkable. The lack of ice for
(05:27):
the weak and sickly men was very much felt. Fortunately
there was no epidemic, for there was not a place
on the ship where patients could have been isolated. During
the month following the landing of the army in Cuba,
the food supplies were generally shortened. Quantity and in quality
were never such as were best suited to men undergoing
severe hardships and great exposure in an unhealthy tropical climate.
(05:51):
The rations were, I understand, the same as those used
in the Klondike. In this connection I called special attention
to the report of Captain Brown made by my orders
when I was brigade commander, and here was appended. I
also called attention to the report of my own quartermaster.
Usually we received full rations of bacon and hardtack. The
(06:11):
herd attack, however, was often moldly, so that parts of
cases and even whole cases, could not be used. The
bacon was usually good, but bacon and hardtack make poor
food for men toiling and fighting in trenches under the
midsummer sun of the tropics. The ration of coffee was
often short, and that of sugar generally, so we rarely
got any vegetables. Under these circumstances, the men lost strength steadily,
(06:36):
and as the fevers speedily attacked them, they suffered from
being reduced to a bacon and hardtacked diet. So much
did the shortage of proper food tell upon their health
that again and again officers were compelled to draw upon
their private purses or upon the Red Cross Society to
make good the deficiency of the government's supply. Again and
again we sent down improvised pack trains composed of officers, horses,
(06:59):
of captured Spanish cavalry ponies, or of mules which have
been shot or abandoned but were cured by our men.
These expeditions, sometimes under the chaplains, sometimes under the quartermaster,
sometimes under myself, and occasionally under a trooper, would go
to the sea coast, or to the Red Cross headquarters,
or after the surrender, into the city of Santiago to
(07:21):
get food, both for the well and the sick. The
Red Cross Society rendered invaluable aid. For example, on one
of these expeditions, I personally bought up six hundred pounds
of beans On another occasion, I personally bought up five
hundred pounds of rice, eight hundred pounds of corn meal,
two hundred pounds of sugar, one hundred pounds of tea,
(07:42):
one hundred pounds of oat meal, five barrels of potatoes,
and two of onions, with cases of canned soup and
condensed milk for the sick in hospitals. Every scrap of
the food thus brought up was eaten with avidity by
the soldiers and put new heart and strength into them.
It was only our constant care of the men, and
in this way that enabled us to keep them in
(08:02):
any trim at all. As for the sick in the hospital,
unless we were able from outside sources to get them
such simple delicacies as rice and condensed milk, they usually
had the alternative of eating salt, pork and hardtack, or
going without. After each fight, we got a good deal
of food from the Spanish camps in the way of beans, peas,
and rice, together with green coffee, all of which the
(08:25):
men used and relished greatly. In some respects the Spanish
rations were preferable to ours, notably in the use of rice.
After we had been ashore a month the supplies began
to come in in abundance, and we then fared very well.
Up to that time. The men were underfed during the
very weeks when the heaviest drain was being made upon
their vitality, and the deficiency was only partially supplied through
(08:49):
the aid of the Red Cross and out of the
officer's pockets and the pockets of various New York friends
who sent us money. Before, during, and immediately after the
fights of June twenty fourth and in July first, we
were very short of even the bacon and hard tack.
About July fourteenth, when the heavy rains interrupted communication, we
were threatened with famine, as we were informed that there
(09:11):
was not a day's supply of provisions in advance nearer
than the sea coast. In another twenty four hours. Reign
would have resulted in a complete breakdown of communications, so
that for several days we should have been reduced to
a diet of mule meat and mangoes. At this time,
in anticipation of such a contingency, by foraging and hoarding,
we got a little ahead so that when our supplies
(09:33):
were cut down for a day or two, we did
not suffer much and we were even able to furnish
a little aid to the less fortunate First Illinois Regiment,
which was camped next to us. Members of the Illinois
Regiment were offering our men one dollar apiece for hard tacks.
I wish to bear testimony to the energy and capacity
of Colonel Weston, the Commissary General, with the expedition. If
(09:56):
it had not been for his active aid, we should
have fared worse than we did. All that he could
do for us he most cheerfully did. As regards the clothing,
I have to say as to the first issue, the
blue shirts were excellent of their kind, but altogether too
hot for Cuba. They are just what I used to
wear in Montana. The leggings were good, the shoes were
(10:17):
very good, the undershirts not very good, and the drawers bad,
being of heavy, thick Canton flannel, difficult to wash and
entirely unfit for a tropical climate. The trousers were poor,
wearing badly. We did not get any other clothing until
we were just about to leave Cuba, by which time
most of the men were in tatters, some being actually barefooted,
(10:38):
while others were in rags or dressed partly in clothes
captured from the Spaniards, who were much more suitably clothed
for the climate and place than we were. The ponchos
were poor, being inferior to the Spanish raincoats which we captured.
As to the medical matters, I invite your attention not
only to the report of Doctor Church accompanying this letter,
but to the letters of Captain Llewellyn, Captain and Lieutenant McElhenny.
(11:02):
I could readily produce a hundred letters on the lines
of the last three. In actual medical supplies, we had
plenty of quinine and cathartics, we were apt to be
short on other medicines, and we had nothing whatever in
the way of proper nourishing food for our sick and
wounded men during most of the time, except what we
were able to get from the Red Cross or purchase
(11:23):
with our own money. We had no hospital tent at
all until I was able to get a couple of tarpaulins.
During much of the time my own fly was used
for the purpose. We had no cots until by individual
effort we obtained a few only three or four days
before we left Cuba. During most of the time, the
sick men lay on the muddy ground in blankets if
(11:43):
they had any. If not, they lay without him until
some of the well men cut their own blankets in half.
Our regimental surgeon very soon left us, and doctor Church,
who was repeatedly taken down with the fever, was left alone,
save as he was helped by men detailed from among
the troopers. Both he and the men thus detailed, together
with the regular hospital attendants, did work of incalculable service.
(12:07):
We had no ambulance with the regiment on the battlefield.
Our wounded were generally sent to the rear in mule
wagons or on litters, which were improvised. At other times
we would hire the little springless Cuban carts, but of
course the wounded suffered greatly in such conveyances, and moreover
often we could not get a wheeled vehicle of any
(12:27):
kind to transport even the most serious cases. On the
day of the big fight, July first, as far as
we could find out, there were but two ambulances with
the army, and condition the work, neither of which did
we ever see. Later there were, as we were informed,
thirteen all told, and occasionally after the surrender, by vigorous
representations and requests, we would get one assigned to take
(12:50):
some peculiarly bad cases to the hospital. Ordinarily, however, we
had to do with one of the makeshifts enumerated above.
On several occasions of the big hospitals in the rear,
their condition was frightful beyond description, from lack of supplies,
lack of medicine, lack of doctors, nurses and attendants, and
(13:10):
especially from lack of transportation. The wounded and sick who
were sent back suffered so much that whenever possible, they
returned to the front. Finally, my brigade Commander, General Wood ordered,
with my hearty acquiescence, that only in the direst need
should any men be sent to the rear. No matter
what our hospital accommodations at the front might be. The
(13:31):
men themselves preferred to suffer almost anything lying alone in
their little shelter tents, rather than go back to the
hospitals in the rear. I invite attention to the accompany
letter of Captain Llewellyn in relation to the dreadful condition
of the wounded on some of the transports taking them north.
The greatest trouble we had was with the lack of transportation.
(13:53):
Under the order issued by direction of General Miles through
the Adjuntant General on or about May eighth, a regiment
serving as infantry in the field was entitled to twenty
five wagons. We often had one, often none, sometimes two,
and never as many as three. We had a regimental
pack train, but it was left behind at Tampa. During
(14:14):
most of the time. Our means of transportation were chiefly
the improvised pack trains spoken of above. But as the
mules got well, they were taken away from us, and
so were the captured Spanish cavalry horses. Whenever we shifted camp,
we had to leave most of our things behind, so
that the night before each fight was marked by our
sleeping without tentage and with very little food. So far
(14:36):
as officers were concerned, as everything had to be sacrificed
to getting up what ammunition and medical supplies we had.
Colonel Wood seized some mules and in this manner got
up the medical supplies before the fight of June twenty fourth,
when for three days the officers had nothing but what
they wore. There was a repetition of this, only in
worse form, before and after the fight of July. One
(14:59):
of course, much each of this was simply a natural
incident of war, but a great deal could readily have
been avoided if we had had enough transportation. And I
was sorry not to let my men be as comfortable
as possible and rest as much as possible just before
going into a fight, when as on July first and
July second, they might have to be forty eight hours
with the minimum quantity of food and sleep. The fever
(15:22):
began to make heavy ravages among our men just before
the surrender, and from that time on it became a
most serious matter. The shift camp, with sick and ailing
soldiers hardly able to walk, not to speak of carrying
heavy burdens when we had no transportation. Not more than
half of the men could carry their roles, and yet
these with the officer's baggage of provisions, the entire hospital
(15:44):
and its appurtenansus, et cetera, had to be transported somehow.
It was usually about three days after we reached the
new camp before the necessaries which had been left behind
could be brought up, and during these three days we
had to get along as best we could. The entire
lack of train transportation at first resulted in leaving most
of the troop mess kits on the beach, and we
(16:05):
were never able to get them. The men cooked in
the few utensils they could themselves carry. This rendered it
impossible to boil the drinking water. Closely allied to the
lack of transportation was the lack of means to land
supplies from the transports. In my opinion, the deficiency and
transportation was the worst evil with which we had to contend, serious,
(16:26):
though some of the others were I have never served before,
so have no means of comparing this with previous campaigns.
I was often told by officers who had seen service
against the Indians that relatively to the size of the
army and the character of the country, we had only
a small fraction of the transportation always used in the
Indian campaigns. As far as my regiment was concerned, we
(16:49):
certainly did not have one third of the amount absolutely
necessary if it was to be kept in fair condition,
and we had to partially make good the deficiency by
the most energetic resort to all kinds of makeup and expedients.
Yours respectfully, sign, Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel, first United States Cavalry,
forwarded through military channels five enclosures. First endorsement, Headquarters, Fifth
(17:14):
Army Corps, Camp Wickoff, September eighteenth, eighteen ninety eight, Respectfully
Forwarded to the Adjunct General of the Army, sign William R.
Shafter Major General Commanding, and of Appendix B
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com